Róumen
Classification and Dialects Roumanish is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. Roumanish evolved from the fringes of Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in the boders of Gaul, and more specifically in south eastern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. Roumanish was also influenced by native Celtic languages of the alps and by the (Germanic) Frankish and Alemanic languages of the post-Roman invaders. Today, owing to the frequent contact with French since early middle ages, the orthography and pronunciation of Roumanish has been significantly influenced to an extent of some mutual intelligibility. In the middle ages it was occassionally thought to be a dialect of French but over time the grammarians have come to appreciate the difference. Phonology Consonants Vowels Stress Stress in most unmarked words is usually on the last syllable. Exceptions to this general rule are quite myriad but in summary: * Marked stress is shown by accent marks, both acute and grave marks show stress. The two only differentiate the quality of the stressed vowel. * The circumflex on a vowel indicates lengthening which historically is a compensatory lengthening due to loss of s before another consonant e.g RĒS PŪBLICA > r'ê'''públique /ʀɛ:'pyblik/ (republic). * In case of two accents on a word stress falls on the last accented syllable e.g. été /e'te/ (summer). * Wherue only the circumflex is present, the syllable with circumflex receives the stress e.g. êtique /'ɛ:tik/ (tidal). * Where the word is unmarked for stress if it ends in a single consonant, when the consonant is muted and the last vowel undergoes compensatory lengthening, this is mostly evident in colloquial form of speech but has gained popularity even in formal speeches of late. This has resulted in the almost musical accent on the language. 'NB;' ''The difference between a stressed syllable and unstressed syllable is quite small sometimes they can only differ in length. Roumanish is a weakly accented language. '' Phonotactics A basic syllable of Roumanish consist of ©©©V©. However most syllables are usually in the form ©V (this is the most common pattern in Roumanish) since most codas are usually muted, almost like French. Writing System Roumanish is written in Latin alphabet. Its orthography is influenced by that of french although it differs in some aspects with it. Its orthography was modeled on that of the French during the middle ages. Notes # C is pronounced /s/ before i, e and their variations, /k/ elsewhere. The ç called ''cé torcut (twisted c) is always pronounced /s/. # The pronounciation of the variations of e are; é /ɛ/ ê /e/ é /e/ otherwise it is pronounced as /ə/. It is always silent at the end of a word when unmarked but still causes the softening effect on c and g. # G is pronounced /ʒ/ before i, e and their variations, /g/ elsewhere. It is silent at the end of a word. # Always appears as in the digraph qu. # R is pronounced /ʀ/ at the begining of a word and in the digraph rr, it becomes /ʁ/ intervocally and /ɾ/ elswhere except the end where it is silent. Combinations The mute letters at the end include b, d, g, h, n, p, r, s, t, x and z. Grammar Articles There are three articles in Roumanish; definite articles (corresponding to English 'the'), indefinite articles (corresponding to English 'a/an') and partitive articles (roughly corresponding to 'some' in English). The articles agree in number and gender of the noun they determine. The tables below show the different articles present in Roumanish: Definite articles are used in the following contexts: * General common nouns and abstractions e.g. la pacience est une virtut ''( patience is a virtue ), ''il chen sauta dessour il sief ''( the dog jumped over the hedge). * Nominal clauses (both common and proper nouns) e.g. ''il vieu Delhi fut alúcinant ''( old Delhi was amazing ) * Countries e.g. ''èu voil visiter l'italie ''( I want to visit Italy ). * Languages and academic subjects e.g. ''lui comprend l'allemen ''( he understands German ), ''mie mère ensigne les mathematiques ''( my mother teaches mathematics ). * Seasons e.g. ''l'été arrive prêt ''( summer is coming early ). * Titles and family names e.g. ''il bajóuil est preparet a voir't ''( the mayor is prepared to see you), ''les Serdou arrivent ''( the Sardous are coming over). * Parts of the body e.g. ''lui se lave les mens '' ( he is washing his hands) The definite articles are with both count and non count (mass nouns) objects e.g. ''lei vent le lait ''( she sells milk), ''set-la ciêt qu'est l'amour? ''( does she know what love is? ) Mostly indefinite articles used to refer to unspecific objects e.g. ''èu vi la cheire recet ''( I saw a broken chair ), ''un chat est sour la taule ''( a cat is on the table). Partitive articles are used to indicate an indefinite portion of something uncountable, or an indefinite number of something countable. It is often translated as 'some' or occasionally omitted in English. For example, ''doune'm du pen '' (give me some bread), ''lui but l'aive avant partit '' ( he drank (some) water before he left), ''ciêt est du vin sour la taule (there is (some) wine on the table). Nouns Nouns have two genders and each noun belongs to one of the two genders gender; masculine and feminine. Natural gender conforms to the grammatical gender. However, predicting the gender of a noun is quite a hideous task although there are some general tendencies. The marked gender is feminine, where most word end in ''-e and ''-çioun ''in singular form. The rest with a few peculiarities are masculine. For plural it ends in s for those which end in vowels. For example ''il chevéu ''(horse) - ''les chevéux, la ceuisse ''(thigh) - ''les ceuisses. ''Most masculine nouns end in consonants in singular in plural it is simply made by adding an -s to the end of the word, for example, ''fourêt - fourêts ''(forest), some which end in -e/-è/éu are also made by adding - x prounced only in liason enviroment e.g. ''cieu ''(sky) - cieux'', '' il chevéu (horse) - les chevéux''. There are also those which end in final "stressed/accented" vowels in singular, plural is simply made by adding - z e.g. ''fé ''(beech) ''- féz ''. Pronouns Personal pronouns The personal pronouns in Roumanish are inflected to show their rolels in in the sentence. They exist either as as strong(stressed) or weak (unstressed). The following table shows the inflection of strong personal pronouns: These forms are used to represent the subject of the sentence There exist another class of personal pronouns, these are known as weak pronouns. This is because they do not receive stress and have elided forms for certain environments. Below is their forms Note that the elided forms are always pronounced. As for the use; Enclitic pronouns are used: * Enclitic pronouns are used with infinitives, gerunds, and positive imperatives. Proclitic pronouns are used: * With all other forms of the verb, in particular, conjugated (finite) verbs and negative imperatives Verbs Syntax Syntax Lexicon Example text